The present invention relates to methods for producing products (especially household products such as air care products, cleaning products, personal care products, pest control products, and home storage products) with reduced environmental and health concerns. It also relates to methods for better informing the public regarding the chemical make-up of such products without materially undermining trade secret protection on proprietary component/additive materials used therein, and computer systems useful therewith.
Environmental and health concerns exist relating to the use of certain chemicals for certain household and other purposes where humans will be likely to come into contact with them. Some chemicals present direct health and/or environmental concerns. Others present indirect concerns because they degrade to a problematic material, or have a tendency to combine/react with common materials to thereby create something problematic. Moreover, while many other chemicals don't have these problems, for some the way they are typically produced can be environmentally problematic.
Adding further complexity is the fact that suppliers of complex component materials sometimes keep the exact nature of their materials confidential. This is a particularly prevalent practice with respect to complex fragrancing materials, but is also sometimes seen in other fields such as colorants, surfactants, preservatives, emulsifiers, flavors, and other product adjuvants and additive packages. Such suppliers often are willing to disclose a primary attribute of the material (e.g. that it is lilac based), but often refuse to disclose some secondary ingredients.
Some consumers have allergies, asthma, or other sensitivities, leading them to avoid using or being exposed to products where they are not sure of all of the chemicals that could be in those products. Thus, it is desirable to provide greater information to consumers about the content of products that consumers are exposed to. Companies therefore disclose product contents on the product label and/or via associated web sites. However, in these contexts they often do not provide details about certain secondary proprietary materials included therein (e.g. they refer to the product as containing a fragrance, flavor or color, without details as to the nature of the fragrance, flavor or color).
While some components that might be proposed for use in household materials are clearly acceptable from an environmental/health standpoint (“green flag”, e.g. water), and others are generally recognized as unacceptable from an environmental/health standpoint (“red flag”, e.g. asbestos), there are some ingredients that could be proposed for use in certain household products which require further analysis/study before final categorization for that application. Regardless, even a preliminary categorization of a material's environmental and/or health risks can be frustrated if a fragrance, surfactant, color or other additive supplier is unwilling to disclose some of the ingredients therein even to a product formulator.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,973,362 and 7,096,084 described various methods for formulating commercial products for particular applications using numerical scores for the known component chemicals with respect to specific environmental or health concerns. However, these patents did not address the problem of how to deal with components of a trade secret nature, or techniques for better informing the public about the nature of the formulated product, or how to deal with a developing and changing range of environmental and health concerns.
Thus, a need exists to provide improvements in these areas.